and Francisco the previous year on April 4. They were beatified together on May 13, 2000, …
A REPORT ON ANTIMENINGITIS VACCINATION AND OBSERVATIONS ON AGGLUTININS IN THE BLOOD OF CHRONIC MENINGOCOCCUS CARRIERS
by Frederick L. Gates
From the Base Hospital, Fort Riley, Kansas, and The Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, New York.
Received 1918 Jul 20
CONCLUSION
Dr. Gates = Smithers
Rockefeller = Mr. Burns
They don’t believe us Jezu Krist
HOO AHH!!!
all according to plan….my R&R minions, richest two families on earth merged
The “Spanish Flu” killed an estimated 50-100 million people during a pandemic 1918-19. What if the story we have been told about this pandemic isn’t true? What if, instead, the killer infection was neither the flu nor Spanish in origin? Newly analyzed documents reveal that the “Spanish Flu” may have been a military vaccine experiment gone awry. In looking back on the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, we need to delve deeper to solve this mystery.
https://www.ageofautism.com/2018/11/did-a-vaccine-experiment-on-us-soliders-cause-the-spanish-flu-epidemic.html
Looks like the game is over….. “He throws the ball with no idea who’s at the other end. Hail Mary.
[from trailer]
Jack Harper : [in ruins of stadium] The last Super Bowl was played right here.
Victoria : Please don’t tell me it was a classic.
Jack Harper : Classic game. 80,000 people on their feet. Seconds left on the clock. So QB throws a Hail Mary. Touchdown!
people still brain dead to the truth:
House Bill 15090 – Actual Document Description: House Bill 15090 proves the Department of Defense (DOD) asked for $10 million from Congress to fund HIV – or as they say a “synthetic biological agent…
The Virgin Mary’s War against Freemasonry
The Third Secret of Fatima Revealed
http://freemasonrywatch.org/portugal.html
The Virgin Mary
Baby Jesus cradled by Our Lady
The Freemasons war against the Virgin Mary
In 1910 the Freemasons took power in Portugal with a Provisional Government by force of arms. The first act of this government on October 8, 1910 was to suppress all Religious Congregations and to expel the Jesuits. A few days later on October 18, 1910 they abolished the religious oath in the court system and then on the 25th they abolished the oath to defend the Immaculate Conception in the schools. In the same month of October they decreed that all religious holidays were to be days of work. On November 3, 1910 Divorce was legalized for the first time in Portugal. On Christmas day in 1910 marriage was declared to be a purely civil contract and on the 31st of December 1910 the priests and nuns who were allowed to remain in Portugal were not allowed to wear religious dress or habits on pain of imprisonment. The law of Separation on April 20,1911 extorted large sums of money from the Church and confiscated Church buildings for use as barracks, stables, and Government buildings. Convents and monasteries became jails and offices for the government. Magalhaes Lima, Grand Master of the Portuguese Freemasonry declared that within a few years no one would want to be a priest. Another Freemason, Afonso Costa, declared that the new law of separation of Church and State would end the Catholic Church in two generations. In other words the Dogma of Faith would be lost forever. For the first time in Portuguese history the Protestant Churches were invited in by the government. It was the reenactment of the French Revolution in Portugal. Adding to this the First World War and the continuous changes of government from 1910 to 1917 and you will see the situation in Portugal at the time of the Apparitions. It was the same thing that happened to Mexico in 1910 and the Freemasons lasted for 90 years in Mexico. But in Portugal Our Lady came to help the people and the Church.
OUR LADY GOES TO WAR
The angel prepared the children in 1916 to prepare for a visit of Our Lady and in May, June and July She visited them, giving the three secrets and showing them hell. But it was in August that Our Lady went to war against the Freemasons. On August 13, 1917 Our Lady was to appear again in the Cova, but the most prominent Freemason in the area had another idea. The Mayor of Vila Nova de Ourem, which encompasses Fatima, was Arthur Santos. He was a Freemason and published a newspaper called, Ouriense, which attacked the monarchy and the Church in the small towns of Ourem and Fatima. He was elected to the Masonic Lodge of Leiria, and later founded his own Lodge in Ourem-Fatima. As a reward for his attacks against the Church and his loyalty to the Freemasons, he was made Mayor at the age of 26 when the Freemasons took power in Portugal. The Mayor, Arthur Santos, called the three children to his office on August 11, 1917 but Ti Mario, the father of Jacinta and Francisco would not take them and instead went himself. Lucia and her father, Antonio, went with him. In the meeting the mayor threatened Lucia with death, and questioned Antonio and Ti Mario. Antonio did not yet believe in the apparitions but Ti Mario did and said so. He confronted the mayor face to face without flinching. According to the written Testimony of Ti Marto, “On the morning of August 13, it was Monday … [he found the Mayor sitting in his living room] ‘I never expected to see you in my house!’ ‘No, I thought after all I would like to go the miracle. Yes, we can all go together and I’ll take the children in the carriage. We’ll see and believe like St. Thomas.’ The Mayor was clearly nervous, fidgeting, looking around like a bird expecting a cat to pounce on it. He pulled out a big turnip watch from a vest pocket. “It’s getting late, maybe you should call the children.” “Don’t worry, Senhor Administrator.” Said Ti Marto, “They’ll be here on time. With their Lady, they never need to be reminded of the time.” The front door opened and the three children came bursting in, pink-cheeked, smiling, their eyes bright. They were chattering like birds. At the sight of the Mayor, they stopped dead. Their chattering ceased and worried looks came over their faces. “Are you ready, children?” said Ti Martin. “The Senhor Administrator wants to take you to the Cova in his carriage.” “We’d sooner walk!” said Lucia. “Well, just this once you can ride with me. We must see Father Ferreira before you go to the Cova da Iria. So, come with me.” said the Mayor. They went first to the Parish Church to see the priest but this was a ploy to go away from the Cova and towards Ouriem before the crowds could know what they were doing. After a pretence with the priest the Mayor thrust the children into the cart and left Ti Marto standing in the dust, looking furious. This was the plan to get the children away from the crowds and their parents. The Mayor raced off down the hill with the three children from the Parish Church to his own home. Meanwhile at the Cova news came that the Mayor had kidnapped the Children and a crowd of many thousands resolved to go down together to the Mayor’s office and brake down the door and get the children back.
DID OUR LADY APPEAR ON AUGUST 13, 1917?
Around the tree people were praying and singing hymns. There were about 5,000 and the roads were packed with many more coming. Flowers were being placed around the tree and the lanterns were lit on the arch. Candles were placed on the makeshift table. “The mayor has kidnapped the children. Let us all go to his office and brake it down. Let us storm the city. They cannot stop all of us. They cannot do this to little children.” It was only 11:00 Am and a sudden flash thunder stopped the shouting of the crowds. Everyone spread away from the tree, then lightning busted out upon the Cova. “We will be killed without the children.” Shouted a woman. Then quietly a little cloud, very delicate, very white, stopped for a few moments over the tree and then rose in the air and disappeared. It was seen by all. Everyone’s faces reflected the colors of the rainbow, pink, red, blue. The trees seemed to be made not of leaves but of flowers, they seemed to be laden with flowers, each leaf seemed to be a flower. The ground shown out in colors and so did their clothes. The lanterns fixed to the arch look like gold. As the signs disappeared all the people set out for Fatima shouting out against the Mayor, against the priest, and against anyone who they thought had anything to do with the imprisonment of the children.
MAYOR’S HOUSE
In order to hide from the crowds the Mayor took the children to his own house and threatened them there, trying to get the secret out of them. He threatened them with death but they hung in together “No more fooling around you brats. You’re going to tell me the secret. Or you’re never going to see your parents again. Now, what is the secret?” The wife of the Mayor, Adelina, was not the same and fed and took care of the children. Late that night they were taken to the jail that looks like some medieval dungeon. Inside, the cell is a dim, stone cube, with straw strewn on the stone floor. A noisome metal bucket sits in one comer as a toilet. A small, barred window is set high in one of the walls and through this comes the only light in the cell. Standing staring at the children are five convicts, all grown men. The door slams shut, leaving the cell in only very dim light from the window. The five convicts (or maybe political prisoners) fell in love with the children and played and danced with them. In time the children and all five convicts kneeled in prayer. In the morning they were taken before the Mayor. The convicts, with tears in their eyes, embraced the children. The Mayor first tried to bribe the children with three gold coins worth a months wages for their fathers. Then he threatened them with boiling oil being prepared in the next room. First came Jacinta to go to her death and then Francisco, and last Lucia. But all refused to recant their visions or tell the secret. Of course they were not thrown in oil but they thought that they would be. Twice more they were threatened with the same oil.
FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION – AUGUST 15, 1917
On the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and the third day of imprisonment (A little over two days) the Mayor took the children to the parish church. Mass was going on and the Church was crowded. The Mayor brought the children to the porch of the rectory. According to the written testimony of Ti Marto, the father of Jacinta and Francisco, people were coming out of the mass and children with them and asking him if he had heard where the children were. He suggested that they might have been taken to Santarem. “The words were hardly out of my mouth when someone shouted, ‘Look, Ti Marto, they’re on the veranda of the priest.” And so on the third day, just like Christ, the children came back. They were released from prison on the feast of Our Lady’s Assumption, August 15,1917.
WHAT TO DO WITH THE MONEY?
According to the written testimony of Maria de Caplea, who had taken charge of the money that people placed around the tree of the Cova de Iria, she did not know what Our Lady wanted her to do with the money. She asked everyone what they thought about it but could not get an answer. “This went on until the 19th of August. It was Sunday and I went to Mass as usual. Afterwards I saw Lucia’s Father with Lucia. … At that moment the idea came into my head to ask Lucia to ask Our Lady what she wanted done with the money. She told me not to worry and that on the day of the next Apparition in September she would ask about it.” Within a few days, however, Lucia was able to give Our Lady’s answer.
AUGUST IN VALINHOS
Lucia, Francisco and Joao, the oldest brother of Jacinta, were watching their sheep. Lucia looked around at the sky. She stood up and looked around again. There was no clouds but she sensed something. Then there was a flash of lightening. “She must be coming and Jacinta’s not here! John, go and fetch Jacinta, Our Lady is coming. (John wanted to stay and see) Go, you must go. I’ll give you money if you go and fetch Jacinta.” said Lucia. When Jacinta arrived a ball of light appeared over a small tree. The ball opened up from the front and Our Lady appeared over a small cloud.
LUCIA “What do you want?”
VIRGIN “Go again to the Cova da Iria on the 13th and continue to say the Rosary every day.
LUCIA “Will you perform a miracle for all to see?
VIRGIN “I will. In October, I will perform a miracle so that everyone can believe in the apparitions. It they had not taken you to the town the miracle would have been greater. St. Joseph will come with the Holy Child to bring peace to the world. Our Lord will also come to bless the people. Our Lady of the Rosary and Our Lady of Dolores will come too.”
LUCIA “What are we to do with the money and the offerings which the people leave in the Cova da Iria?”
VIRGIN “Make two biers. You are to carry one with Jacinta and two more girls dressed in white. Francisco is to take the other with three boys dressed in white. The money for the biers is for the Fiesta of Our Lady of the Rosary.”
LUCIA “Many sick are asking to be cured.”
VIRGIN “I will cure some during the year. Pray, pray very much and make sacrifices for sinners, for many souls go to hell because no one makes sacrifices for them.”
The ball of light closes around Her and lifts off towards the eastern sky until it disappears.
FREEMASONS AND OUR LADY
So why do the Portuguese think of August 13th as one of the great feast days of Fatima? Because this is the day She fought and defeated the Freemasons! This is the day She performed a miracle for the people even though the children were not there in the Cove da Iria! Five thousand people saw the little cloud, the lightning, the rainbows of colors. This is the day Our Lady came just for the people of Portugal! This is the day She started her war with the anti-Catholic government of Portugal. The following year the mayor was fired, and the diocese restored. In 1921 the communists tried to take over the government but by 1926 Salazar took power and restored all the Church property and rights. He took the government from total poverty to great wealth in only a few years. On the Feast of the Assumption the children were freed from jail and on the 19th or 20th She appeared in the children’s village
Resource: Lucifers Masonic Lodge
ZENIT – The World Seen From Rome
http://www.zenit.org/english/visualizza.phtml?sid=64366
Code: ZE05010722
Date: 2005-01-07
Dogma of Immaculate Conception Opened a New Era
Interview With Journalist Vincenzo Sansonetti
ROME, JAN. 7, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was a providential event that reinvigorated “an exhausted Church” by reminding the faithful of “the existence of original sin and Christ’s redemption.”
So says Vincenzo Sansonetti, who worked for the Italian episcopal conference’s newspaper Avvenire from 1976 to 1989.
In this interview with ZENIT he highlighted striking passages of his new book “The Immaculate Conception. From Pius IX’s Dogma to Medjugorje” (“L’Immacolata Concezione. Dal Dogma di Pio IX a Medjugorje”), published in Italy by Piemme.
Since 1989, Sansonetti has been special envoy of and responsible for the cultural pages of the weekly Oggi; he also contributes to reviews such as Mass Media, Studi Cattolici, and Timone.
Q: When and why did the Holy See, all of a sudden, change its position on this mystery of faith, the object of devotion since the very first years of the Church?
Sansonetti: Rather than a change, one may speak of progressive maturation through the centuries which led the Popes to “support,” with discretion but attention, popular devotion and the liturgical feast, for centuries already present in the Church.
The Popes were like arbiters in the disputes, often bitter, between the “maculates” and the “immaculates,” led by Dominicans and Franciscans.
However, if one wishes to identify a crucial point, it must be found in the forced exile of Pope Pius IX, forced to flee to Gaeta, a fortress located in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, to remove himself from the fierce anti-Catholic and anti-papal persecution of the Roman Republic, led by Freemason Giuseppe Mazzini.
The book opens with an almost cinematographic scene, on a cold morning of January 1849, when Pope Mastai Ferretti went out on the balcony of the palace that offered him hospitality and saw a stormy sea. He was worried. Cardinal Lambruschini, who was by his side, said to him: “Your Holiness, the world will only be cured of the evils that oppress it … by proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Only this doctrinal definition will re-establish the sense of Christian truths.”
A few days later, from Gaeta, Pius IX published the encyclical “Ubi Primum” in which he asked all bishops worldwide to define themselves on the dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
The result was virtually a plebiscite and, on December 8, 1854, the Pope pronounced the solemn declaration that “the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, by special grace and privilege of God and in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, was preserved immune from all stain of original sin.”
Q: The promulgation of this dogma took place in a period, heir to the Enlightenment, which in Italy enabled Giuseppe Mazzini to say: “A new era is arising which does not admit Christianity” and that was, as you affirm, characterized by a certain decadence in the life of the Church. Do you believe that this historical and ecclesial event had some affinity with what happened, for example, with the apparition of the Virgin of Guadalupe and, therefore, that it must be interpreted as the response of grace to an impossible human situation?
Sansonetti: The Guadalupe apparition in Mexico completed the evangelization of Latin America in the 16th century. The proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, gave back vigor, in the mid-19th century, to an exhausted Church in a tight spot, by recalling the existence of original sin and the redemption of Christ.
They were providential events, which corresponded to a mysterious divine plan. And it is amazing that, four years after the proclamation of the dogma, on February 11, 1858, Our Lady appeared in Lourdes calling herself the Immaculate Conception, confirming the dogma.
She could have done so earlier — there were tens, if not hundreds, of Marian apparitions prior to Lourdes — but the Virgin respects the human way, the steps of the Church. And she described herself as the “immaculate” only “after” Pius IX’s Bull of December 8, 1854.
Q: Can you tell us something about the supernatural events that reporters of that time wrote in regard to the promulgation of the bull “Ineffabilis Deus”?
Sansonetti: On the morning of December 8, 1854, in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, a ray of light fell on Pius IX at the moment of the reading of the bull “Ineffabilis Deus.” An amazing phenomenon, because in no season, and much less so just before winter, and from no window of the Vatican basilica, could a ray of light reach the apse where the Pope was. It was seen as a kind of heavenly approval, the hope of a joyful future in the midst of the tormented life of the Church at the time.
A few months later, on April 12, 1855, Pius IX was visiting the “Propaganda Fide” School in Rome. All of a sudden the pavement opened up. That instant, the Pope cried out: “Immaculate Virgin, help us!” Miraculously, no one was hurt. For a century in that school the custom continued among the students, when dismissed for a break, to repeat the prayer “Immaculate Virgin, help us!”
Q: In “Ineffabilis Deus,” Pius IX, in declaring the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, said that it was destined for “the exaltation of the Catholic faith and the enhancement of the Christian religion.” What were the benefits obtained with the definition?
Sansonetti: It was another Pope who described the benefits for the life of the Church: St. Pius X, in the encyclical “Ad Diem Illum Laetissimum,” published in 1904, fifty years after the proclamation of the dogma.
In addition to “the hidden gifts of graces” given by God to the Church through the intercession of Mary, Pope Sarto recalled: the convocation of Vatican Council I in 1870, with the dogmatic definition of papal infallibility; the “new and never before seen fervor of piety with which the faithful of all classes and nations, have been coming, for a long time, to venerate the Vicar of Christ”; the longevity of the pontificates of Pius IX and Leo XIII, most wise pilots of the Church; the “apparitions of the Immaculate in Lourdes and the flourishing of miracles and piety.”
Missions, charity and culture flourished again, and the presence and visibility of Catholics returned to social life. An amazing example: On the day of the Assumption of 1895, after the courageous example of the Catholics of Roubaix, Eucharistic processions, which had been prohibited, resumed throughout France.
Q: During John Paul II’s visit to Lourdes [last] year, on the day of the Assumption, papal spokesman Navarro Valls said: “The Pope has come to ask for healing not only of physical illness but of the gravest sickness that torments the modern world: forgetfulness of original sin.”
Sansonetti: In reality, with his reminder of original sin, John Paul II did nothing other than repeat something already clear at the end of the 19th century, the century of Pius IX and of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. And, on top of that, in environments that were certainly not clerical.
At the end of the 19th century, the poet Baudelaire, who was certainly not a flatterer, said: “The greatest heresy of our time is the negation of original sin!” This heresy is still alive and acting.
Suffice it to think of the campaign against the former Italian Minister Rocco Buttiglione, a Catholic, obliged to give up his candidature for European Commissioner for Justice and Liberties, for having used the word “sin” during a hearing.
Sin and original sin are denied because there is the desire to affirm the idea of man totally liberated from a supernatural dependence, from a Creator, a man who does not acknowledge his limitations and puts himself in God’s place.
But man, freed from this bond, without a religious reference, becomes a tyrant to himself, prey to utopias and totalitarianisms. From a man without God, spring Nazism, Communism and the present terrorism that uses the word “god” for its bloody ends.
Mary Immaculate, with her gentle and benevolent smile, just as she has been pictured, has crushed the serpent’s head and leads us by the hand toward Paradise, toward the immaculate condition that is her privilege, though promised to us all.
Further Reading
Freemasonry in Portugal
Maçonaria em Portugal | Freemasonry in Portugal
http://freemasonrywatch.org/freemasonry.in.portugal.html
France Masonic Temple, Temple Frog
Joseph Bonaparte encouraged the spread of the lodge in Spain, and the aggressively political and anticlerical Spanish lodges contributed to Spanish unrest for decades. In neighboring Portugal, Masonic politicians gained control of the nation in 1910 and set up a republic with the following provisions:
Ministers of religion shall have no part in the parochial lay corporations or associations in charge of temporal affairs. A minister of religion who criticizes or attacks any of the acts of a public authority or the form of government or the laws of the Republic or any of the provisions of the present law will be punishible by law. Church property shall belong to the State, but shall be loaned to the Church. The wearing of the clerical habit outside of the churches and ceremonies is prohibited. It is also prohibited to publish in any way by word or deed, any bulls, decrees, or communications from the Roman Curia, or prelates, or others, without explicit permission from the civil authorities. The state will have charge of naming and approving the professors in ecclesiastical seminaries for the training of priests and will determine the textbooks and courses of study therein. No Jesuits or other monastic orders or religious congregations shall be admitted into Portugese territory. All Jesuits, whether alien, or naturalized citizens, or natives, are expelled, and all their real or personal property is confiscated. As for the members of other religious orders, if they are aliens or naturalized citizens, they are likewise to be expelled, and if they are natives, they must return to secular life, or at least may not live in community, and shall not be allowed to exercise the teaching profession or intervene in any way in education.
Christianity and American Freemasonry
Ignatius Press 1958, 1987, 1998
Diario de Noticias: Freemasonry in Portugal Debate – Masons refuse to disclose their condition – 24/11/12
Diario de Noticias: Church forbids Catholics from being Masons – 14/11/12
Diario de Noticias: Former judge accused of controlling Freemasonry justice – 13/11/12
Diario de Noticias: Over 80 Masons in influential positions – 12/11/12
All Voices: Cardinal Policarpo accuses Masonic lodges of dictating government agencies – 16/01/12
All Voices: Portuguese Government looks for Masons among politicians – 05/01/12
Portuguese police chief steps down in Freemasonry scandal
The 1910 Portugal Revolution and Freemasonry
‘Boiled in Oil’: The Masonic Mayor of Fatima’s Satanic Actions Exposed
Fatima Mocked by the Freemasons
The 1921 Bombing of the Shrine of Fatima by the Freemasons
The Third Secret of Fatima Revealed: The Virgin Mary’s War against Freemasonry
Freemasonry In Portugal, a History of Corruption and Conspiracy
Further Reading
A Certain Point Within A Circle – The Masonic ‘Family’
Fatima Mocked by the Freemasons
Fatima Prayer
OPPOSITION TO FATIMA
continued from Issue No. 7
The message of Fatima is most significant and important for the salvation of souls. However, the message of Fatima and Our Lady’s appearance there, is also very important for the correct ordering of human society in this world. As Our Lady of Fatima pointed out, if mankind would listen to Her message, then the peaceful ordering of individuals, families, cities and countries and in fact the whole world, would be achieved. Such a claim for peace through all levels of society and throughout the whole world could only be achieved if enough individuals at every level of society cooperated in the plan. And this plan could only succeed if it were based on the designs of the Creator of mankind, Who has appointed Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, as King of kings and Lord of lords (Apocalypse 19:16). Jesus is King, not only of individuals but also of societies and the whole world. Therefore if this plan of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is Queen of Heaven and of earth, is to work, mankind must acknowledge the sovereign Kingship of Christ over all mankind. Thus one can understand that the prince of this world, as Jesus Christ referred to the devil, would not accept easily the destruction of his kingdom here on earth. Nor would the peace plan from Heaven be accepted by those men, associations and secret societies whose power and ill-gotten riches would be lost if the Peace plan from Heaven were put into effect. With this background we can better understand the following account of the opposition to the Message of Fatima that reared its ugly head even while the apparitions were going on. You can be sure that this opposition to Our Lady and Her message from Heaven has not ceased even in our own time.
The following article is a continuation of the one beginning in issue number seven, of the history of the opposition to the apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima. The initial opposition came from the Mayor of Ourem and his allies. (Ourem is the county to which the Village of Fatima belonged.) The Mayor of Ourem was an atheist and a Freemason. He and his friends hoped to build a godless republic, and they regarded Catholicism as an adversary and a threat to their political power. To see an open manifestation of belief in God and in the Mother of God, among the people, embarrassed and infuriated the militant atheists. They were determined to suppress devotion to God and Our Lady, and they hoped to eradicate religion entirely from the lives of the people.
Our Lady Appears on October 13, 1917
In the apparition of September 13, Our Lady had repeated her earlier promise to the children: “In October I will perform a miracle that will permit everyone to believe.” On October 13, at least seventy thousand people were present at the site of the Apparition, and recent scientific studies of the photographs taken at the time tell us there were probably one hundred thousand people who witnessed the Miracle of the Sun. When Our Lady spoke to the three children on October 13, She asked that a chapel be built there, and She requested that the Rosary continue to be recited every day, and She promised that the war would end soon. When Lucy asked Her name, she replied, “I am the Lady of the Rosary.” The children on this day also saw St. Joseph and the Child Jesus, Our Lady of Sorrows, and they saw Our Lord giving His blessing to the people. Lucy alone saw Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
It had been raining nearly twenty-four hours by the time it was noon on October 13, the day Our Lady had promised a miracle. Many thousands of people had journeyed to the Cova da Iria to be present at the Miracle. Many of them had traveled all night by foot and by donkey cart through heavy rain, from distant villages. Their clothes were wet and muddy from walking in the countryside and along roads which had been turned to mud by the rain. The people were from many different walks of life, rich and poor, educated and simple, and from many different professions including doctors and priests. There were people who believed in the apparitions at Fatima, and there were others who doubted. There were fervent Catholics and there were atheists who had come to mock. There were journalists who were there to record the event, some from atheistic journals who, while recording the event had no intention of convincing anyone of its reality and its supernatural origin. There were Christians who had been many years away from the Church and the Sacraments.
During the apparition, while Our Lady was speaking to the three children, the rain suddenly stopped, and the sun became visible, looking like a pale silver disc. Many witnesses testified that its light was so dim they could gaze at it without hurting their eyes. Then they saw the sun suddenly begin to spin and it began to radiate light of different colors of the rainbow in all directions. The people noticed that the faces and clothing of the others around them, and the scenery, were reflecting the changing colors that were coming from the sun. After watching it for about ten minutes, they saw the sun stop spinning and begin suddenly to fall towards the earth in a zig-zag motion. The people were terrified. They thought the sun was going to kill them all. It seemed to be the end of the world. And so they fell on their knees, and many asked God for pardon for their sins. Many conversions occurred. People who had been living bad lives had their lives transformed by the grace that they received by going to Fatima that day and seeing the Miracle of the Sun. People who had ridiculed religion for many years returned to the Faith. At a certain moment the sun stopped its earthward motion and resumed its normal place in the sky. When the people got up from their knees, they noticed that their clothes, which had been soaked by the heavy rain of the last twenty-four hours, and muddied from traveling over the countryside by foot and kneeling in the mud at the Cova da Iria, had become dry and clean in an instant.
But even more amazing and more significant was the instantaneous cure of many incurably ill persons who had come to the Cova da Iria that day, fulfilling the promise Our Lady had made that sick persons would be cured at the occasion of the great Miracle at Fatima. The cures still take place at Fatima to this day, and the medical bureau there, like at Lourdes, investigates thoroughly any cure that is claimed at Fatima.
The Miracle of the Sun was seen not only by the crowd at the Cova da Iria, but by many individuals as far as forty kilometers away.
The Bishop of Fatima Speaks
In a pastoral letter on the Apparitions in 1930, D. Jose Alves Correia da Silva, the Bishop of Leiria, said:
“The solar phenomenon of October 13, described in newspapers of the time, was the most marvelous and caused the deepest impression on those who had the good fortune to witness it.
The children had foretold the day and the hour at which it would occur. The news spread rapidly throughout Portugal, and in spite of bad weather and the abundant rainfall thousands and thousands of people congregated at the spot. At the hour of the last Apparition they witnessed all the manifestations of the sun which paid homage to the Queen of Heaven and earth, more brilliant than the heavenly body itself at its zenith of light.
This phenomenon, which was not registered in any astronomical observatory, and could not, therefore, have been of natural origin, was witnessed by people of every category and class, by believers as well as unbelievers, journalists of the principal daily papers and even by individuals kilometers away, a fact which destroys any theory of collective hallucination.”
FATIMA APPARTIONS MOCKED BY FREEMASONS…
OCTOBER 1917 OPPOSITION BY THE MILITANT ATHEISTS– After the Miracle of the Sun, the faithful felt there was reason to believe that the enemies of religion in Portugal would postpone their attacks against the Church. But the enemies of religion retaliated with greater fury and disrespect. Father De Marchi, an authority on Fatima, wrote the following account:
“In the general area around Fatima, the focal point of undisciplined prejudice could be found at the Masonic Lodge at Santarem, a town not far away. Here the bigots, at the cost of some pain and planning, made plans for a mock religious procession which would satirize and by some means not exactly clear to themselves expose the alleged wonders of Fatima as a fraudulent imposition on the gullibility of the people.”
During the night of October 23rd, some men from Santarem joined with some others from Vila Nova de Ourem and then continued on to the Cova da Iria. A newspaper of that time, Diario de Noticias records the event as follows:
“With an axe they cut the tree under which the three shepherd children stood during the famous phenomenon of the 13th of this month. They took away the tree, together with a table on which a modest altar had been arranged, and on which a religious image (of Our Lady) had been placed. They also took a wooden arch, two tin lanterns, and two crosses, one made of wood and the other of bamboo-cane wrapped in tissue paper.”
Lucy refers to this event:
“Meanwhile the Government did not leave things where they stood. In the place of the Apparitions people had put an arch and lanterns which were kept alight. One night some men came in a motor car to tear down the arch and to cut the tree where the Apparitions had taken place. In the morning the news spread rapidly and I ran to see if it was true. Imagine my joy when I saw that those wretched men had made a mistake and instead of taking the real tree (which was by then nothing but a small trunk) they had cut one of the saplings nearby. I asked Our Lady to forgive them, and I prayed for their conversion.”
The men took the objects which they had taken from the Cova da Iria, and placed them on exhibition in a house not far from the Seminary at Santarem, and charged an entrance fee to people who wanted to come and be entertained at this joke of the militant atheists against the devotion of the people. But they were disappointed to find that not everyone agreed it was amusing. Even many of the Church’s active critics found it disgusting. Later, in the evening of that day, a blasphemous “procession” was held by the militant atheists. A newspaper of the time gives the account:
“The parade was headed by two men thumping on drums, while just behind it came the famous tree on which The Lady is said to have appeared. Next came the wooden arch, with its lanterns alight, then the altar-table and other objects which the faithful had placed upon it at the Cova da Iria. To the sound of blasphemous litanies the procession passed through the principal streets of the city, returning to the S?da Bandeira Square, at which point it broke up.”
Many of the demonstrators reorganized on the street not far away and were about to start parading again when a woman, from a window above them, dropped a pail of water on their heads. A local policeman was also drenched and a considerable commotion followed. A number of policemen came along and dispersed the gathering. The newspaper account continues:
“The affair was a disgrace. How is it possible that the authorities tolerate such a thing while at the same time refusing permission for the processions of the Church to which nearly the whole population belongs and whose ceremonies in no way offend the religious convictions of others?”
The general reaction among the people, both Catholic and non-Catholic, was one of revulsion. Literate and intelligent Catholics did not allow themselves to be intimidated by either anti-Catholic government policy nor the bigotry and force of their Masonic antagonists. Protests came from all parts of the country of Portugal. A group of educated Catholics of Santarem published a letter in defense of the Catholic Faith and the honor we owe to God, to the Mother of God and to the Cross of Christ. The letter reads as follows:
“As believers, and sons of a nation which has been made great by the faith of its warriors and the heroism of its saints; as citizens of a city which has been in the forefront of civilization and culture, we strongly and earnestly protest against the scandalous processions tolerated by the public authorities, which, on the night of the 24th of this month passed through the streets of Santarem. In this procession, which was worthy only of savages, the objects stolen from a place where people gather with the most pacific of intentions, were shamelessly exhibited. It took place in the presence of the whole population which, however was disgusted at this degrading action on the part of a few people who can only be called pustules of our society. The Cross of Our Redeemer … and the image of the Virgin who has presided over our destinies in all periods of our history, were held up to sacrilege and profanation. The Litany of Our Lady, whose name is the strength and comfort of our soldiers on the field of battle, was drunkenly intoned by the organizers of this satanic orgy. There has not been in living memory such a repugnant attack on the faith of our people, directed against the traditions and dignity of a nation which prides itself on its respect for the beliefs of others. It is impossible for us not to raise our voices against such flagrant provocation, and to repudiate this horrible parody with the greatest energy. Impossible not to make public our bitterness of heart in face of such an attack on the faith of our fathers and our own; an attack also on the honor of this city on the part of a few miserable youths. If we did not publish our disclaimer, we should be considered at home and abroad as the most cowardly and unworthy of Portuguese. We, therefore, proclaim blessed, the Cross of Christ which in other days rode the seas with our caravels when they went forth to conquer new worlds for the Faith and for civilization. We also proclaim blessed, the great Protectress of Portugal who, through the troubles and trials of our history has watched with maternal solicitude over our destiny. May God forgive these impious men, destitute of all decent feeling, who blaspheme her adorable name, and may He withhold the punishment which would justly fall on a nation which consented to such crimes.”
Santarem, 28th October, 1917
Signed “A Group of Catholics.”
In response to the letter, the Portuguese Federation of Free Thinkers retorted with a manifesto addressed “to all liberal-minded Portuguese” against “the ridiculous comedy of Fatima”, which they ascribed to an ecclesiastical plot to unite Church and state and restore diplomatic relations with the Vatican. The writer went so far as to declare that miracles ought to be punished like transgressions against city ordinances, since they were violations of the laws of nature. The manifesto was printed as a pamphlet and circulated throughout Portugal by the Freemasons.
“As if the pernicious propaganda of reactionaries were not enough, we now see a miracle trotted out in order further to degrade the people into fanaticism and superstition,”
“This, citizens, is a miserable and retrograde attempt to plunge the Portuguese people once more into the dense darkness of past times…”
“… raise the mentality of our co-citizens to the realms of Truth, Reason and Science, convincing them that nothing can alter the laws of Nature, and that the pretended miracles are nothing but miserable tricks …”
He went on to condemn religious education:
“Let professors in the schools and colleges educate their pupils in a rational manner, liberating them from religious preconceptions as from all others, and we shall have prepared a generation for the morrow, happier because more worthy of happiness.”
And finally he declared his atheistic belief of Freemasonry:
“Let us, then, liberate ourselves and cleanse our minds, not only from foolish beliefs in such gross and laughable tricks as Fatima, but more especially from any credence in the supernatural and a pretended Deus Omnipotente (all-powerful God), omniscient and omni-everything, instrument of the subtle imaginations of rogues who wish to capture popular credulity for their purposes.”
He concluded with:
“Long live the Republic! Down with Reaction! Long live Liberty!”
Father De Marchi comments on the results of the efforts of the Freemasons to discredit the Fatima apparitions:
“In their almost satanic anxiety to demolish Fatima as rapidly as possible, and to finish once and for all with so-called “Jesuitical inventions”, these unfortunates contributed in no small manner to the unexpected and almost sensational increase of faith in the miracle and to the rebirth of religion in the Terra de Santa Maria.”
(Portugal) Senhor Jos?Val? editor of the Portuguese newspaper O Mundo was an atheist and a political anarchist who tried his best to discredit the apparitions of Fatima. He instigated a gathering of anti-clericals to assemble on the following Sunday outside the Fatima church,
“there and then to unmask the pious comedy of the children and their fantastic Lady-in-the-Sky.”
The parish priest, Father Ferreira, arranged for Mass to be said that Sunday in the Chapel of Our Lady of Ortigo, rather than at Fatima. For the safety of the three children – Lucy, Jacinta and Francisco, the parish priest decided they ought not to remain in Aljustrel in this critical time, and a young nobleman, Dom Pedro Caupers, who was staying at a farm estate 6 kilometers away, warmly received the children and certain members of their families. So there was no one present in Fatima when Jos?Val? the Mayor Arturo Santos, some strong-arm guards and a variety of friends of Jos?Val? arrived at the square in front of the parish Church. The people of the village were away at Mass in the Ortiga church, and the only person they were able to find was the parish regedor. Senhor Val?was humiliated by the frustration of his plan, but he rallied his band for a march on the Cova da Iria, intending to stage a mock-pilgrimage. A man from Lomba da Egua, who believed in the apparitions, prepared an audience for Senhor Val?and his men. He assembled a variety of donkeys, tied each one of them to a tree, and placed under the nose of each donkey a small quantity of a certain chemical that caused them to bray with loud and comic effect just when Senhor Val?and his men arrived. Maria Carreira, who was one of the early supporters of the apparitions at Fatima, gave the following testimony:
“We did our best to annoy them, and they knew it very well. When I arrived with two of my neighbors at 11:30 that morning we hid near the place where the Chapel of Penance was later to be built. Three men, who were our friends, had climbed an oak tree to watch the demonstrators. One of the demonstrators then began to preach against religion, and every time he said something especially offensive, we would answer, “Blessed be Jesus and Mary!” A boy, perched in another tree, began to say the same thing in response to their insults, and they became so furious at us that they sent two of their guards down after us, but we ran away through the trees and they could not find us.”
After awhile men and boys who had been to Mass at the Ortigo chapel came by, and shouts were exchanged between them and the speakers and the guards. Again the guards ran after the people, but they were unable to catch them. After awhile Senhor Val?and his men went off in the direction of Fatima.
Resource: http://www.fatimacrusader.com/
Further Reading
Freemasonry in Portugal